Date: 18 august 2011
DM: quendalon
PCs: Ja'Tubis, Charlie Darrowkin, Hanna Darrowkin, Duke Landrunner, MartÃn le Black, Richard Loubeau
Summary
22 days passed during this session.
Asked if she was willing to summarize another session, Hanna looked dejected and said, "No, not this time. I have this big sheaf of letters I've written to Pritchard already and I haven't even sent them yet! Besides, I'm a bit sad and want to be by myself…"
So, I'll do it myself. She's not real, anyway.
The companions luxuriated in a fine room bought with company finances. Most everyone had a good time, except for Rover and Charlie, who languished with the bubonic plague. Their boils and pestilence failed to dampen everyone's good time.
Finally they were ready to face down with Ululaya, their putative sponsor and mercurial goddess of who-knows-what. They went to her Temple of the Scarlet Moon, where they offered her the Heartless Stone. Unhinging her jaws like a snake and swallowing it down behind her fearsome fangs, she thanked them for their offering. One by one, they were to remind her of their wishes. These may not be fulfilled in expected ways, they were warned, as if the knee-rattling images of everything them wasn't enough of an explanation.
Martin leaped to go first. Falsely inspired by the moment, he launched into some glorious mumbo-jumbo about becoming a servant to Ululaya and proffering his sword in her service as her knighted paladin or some nonsense. Somehow this failed to mention growing back to his full size. In a spectacular bout of rainbows and shattering sword forms, the sword was blessed. And that was it.
Not wanting to see Martin cry, Hanna came forward from where she was cowering, and bravely asked for Martin to be returned to his normal man size. (She fully expected her selflessness to inspire and move everyone to weeping, and be offered a second wish for being so great.) He grew back up, but not mentally or personally.
Ja'Tubis asked for great knowledge of transforming things. But, continuing the theme of the trip corrupting him with unfortunate changes, he lost much of his wisdom and was plunged instead into self-doubt.
Richard asked for special vision in darkness, and was subjected to a weirdness we're all unsure of. We think it's basically good.
Ridicolossus was transformed the scarlet crystaline color of Ululaya and gained profound strength.
Duke Landrunner decided to become a god of dragons, and so he did. Or at least he gained a caustic, burning phlegm. Kind of gross.
Charlie waited patiently for last, and was delivered the world's greatest pie. There is no way to reproduce the description of it, the same way its glory was fleet and glimpsing among all the universes, but suffice to say it was sweet, and savory, and bliss. He didn't share any of it.
Now for finding a way home.
They hired a fishing vessel to circle the island back to the opposite port. There they commissioned passage with a Captain Clovis for a huge amount of gold - 5,000gp - but was unable to get them to Minothrad or Specularum before crashing into a random island and nearly killing everyone during a storm. Almost all of their valuables were lost in the drink.
This was the Isle of Safaris, a playground for Ierendi nobles. They must have been giant nobles, since all the animals were giant, too!
The party fought off three giant goats, guarding their herd of giant ewes and kids. Not really wanting to kill any of them (no treasure), the party and sailors killed one of the rams, which they cooked up. Delicious! But the greasy, cooked meat attracted three giant hawks, which carried off Charlie, before two were killed and the last run off.
At last, grimy and covered with salt deposits and thirsty, they found a settlement, where they washed up and asked where to find the next step home.
On the way to the next port, they were waylaid by six centaurs, who provided fierce battle via missile attacks and then melee engagement. Martin was gravely wounded, enough for a newly intelligent Bazilien to command his weakened ego. Some loot was found in their pouches, and discussion about the nature of what scalping a centaur would entail, so that the scalp would obviously come from a centaur. (They had mentioned scalps as they attacked.) One centaur captive was dragged back to the village. Hanna slipped on a magic ring to see what it would do.
Losses and Loot
Some sailors died, and most of the party's coin was lost at sea. The party recovered some plumage from the giant hawks, and some coin and jewelry from the centaurs- including an apparently magical ring.
For monsters slain, treasures won and financial generosity toward fellow-travelers, each PC earns 922xp.